


the giving tree / the wild woman

by gayforroxane



Series: family bends and bleeds [4]
Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Aged Up, Good times, Miscommunication, University, future stuff, marriage-talk, oh my god yay families, someone's having a baby!, yay!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 15:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13527207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayforroxane/pseuds/gayforroxane
Summary: Once there was a tree....and she loved a little boy.And everyday the boy would comeand he would gather her leavesand make them into crownsand play king of the forest.[...]And the boy loved the tree very much....and the tree was happy.or, Maggie tells the Losers something they need to know, there's celebrating, cuteness for Stan and Bill and a miscommunication for Eddie and Richie





	the giving tree / the wild woman

**Author's Note:**

> the poem is from the giving tree by shel silverstein who is literally my hero he's great  
> also hope you guys like this?

_Once there was a tree...._

_and she loved a little boy._

_And everyday the boy would come_

_and he would gather her leaves_

_and make them into crowns_

_and play king of the forest._

_[...]_

_And the boy loved the tree very much...._

_and the tree was happy._

- _The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein_

 

"We need eggs," Ben says, punctuated by the sound of an egg cracking on the lip of a pan. 

"When do we not need eggs? Jesus fucking Christ, why do you all eat so many eggs?" Maggie mutters, bent over a grocery list, blocky black letters on orange paper. 

"Maggie." Mike looks at Richie who shrugs, a little helplessly, his eyes darting between his mother and the others, taking a long sip of wine. 

"Sorry. Wanna come to the market with me? We need some fucking fruit. Veggies, too. And I need cigs. And then Safeway, because Bill's almost out of beer, which means Stan's almost out of beer and I need more cider, Rich probably wants more wine and Bev and Eddie want more Kahlua and Bailey's. You're the gin drinker, right? That stuff's fucking disgusting--"

" _Maggie_." Mike says, and his usually calm tone is alarmed, bells along his consonants. 

She stops. Her hands starfish on the counter. The space between her shoulders blades collapse and her head hangs between her shoulders. Her hair curls over her face. She's standing at the island, her skin pale against the pale marble countertop, her hair stark against the white cabinets and white walls. The sun filters through her hair, turns the chocolate into honey and the silver into gold. For a moment, Mike thinks she looks like a painting. 

Richie is sitting on the counter, behind her to her left, the stem of his glass of red spinning between his fingers. Eddie is standing between his legs, facing towards Maggie, a forgotten glass of orange juice standing at attention near his elbow. Mike, tall and broad, leans against the island across from her her, mirroring her. At the kitchen table, Bill and Stan watch, quiet, still bent partway over textbooks. Bev leans against the pantry door. Ben stirs a pan of sizzling scrambled eggs, adding cheese and salt, patiently waiting for her words to spill. 

All of her children, waiting. 

There is a bowl of apples and pears and peaches in the center of their glass coffee table, and a container of raspberries in the fridge. There are cucumbers, heads of broccoli and tomatoes in the crisper. On the second shelf of the fridge are three Strongbows, and four cans of Budlight. In the door, next to the milk, is a bottle of red wine. In the cupboard above the microwave are two unopened bottles of Bailey's and a barely touched bottle of Kahlua. 

She's right there's no gin, but Mike only drinks on Christmas Day and New Years Eve, which are still months away. And he drinks champagne. 

"Maggie," Mike says, gentle. 

She folds into herself and the room becomes less-than-quiet. Maggie Wild does not fold. Stan and Richie catch their boyfriend's hands of both of their own and bring them to their mouths, their gaze fixed, stubborn and a little scared, on their mother. Bill's jaw ticks and Eddie's fingers snag in the hem of his hoodie, his knuckles white. 

"I--" Her voice breaks. 

"Is it him?" Eddie asks, and his voice is too loud and everyone flinches, but he doesn't move his eyes from Maggie. A sharp angle juts into his words and his hand in Richie's trembles. His eyes are hard, mouth curled tight. 

Maggie shakes her head. Behind Eddie, Richie's shoulders relax, just a little. 

"Ma," Bev says, quiet. "Ma, is someone hurting you?"

Maggie shakes her head again and her fingers tap against the counter. Mike opens his mouth to speak, but Stan cuts him off. "Wait," he says. He stands and walks over to the fridge. The sound of his wool socks against the floor is almost deafening, and when Ben stirs the scrambled eggs again it stuns. Stan's hand disappears into the fridge and emerges with a cider and one of Bill's beers. He places both on the counter and walks over to Richie, stretches his fingers forward to pull a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pockets, but Eddie beats him to it, hands both to him with a set to his mouth Stan doesn't recognize. (It's fear, Stan will realize later, fear in the shape of anger and boxing gloves).

He presses a cider into Maggie's hand. He puts a cigarette between his teeth and lights it. He takes a long drag. The cigarette moves to Maggie. The crack of cans opening splits the room in two. 

She breathes out smoke and breathes in cider and the tension in her shoulders eases as Stan leans against the counter next to her, their shoulders pressed together. 

"What's going on, ma?" Stan says. 

She sighs, and smoke seeps from the corners of her mouth. "I'm pregnant."

For a moment, no one moves. The entire room seems to stop breathing. 

Eddie pushes off Richie and stalks towards Maggie. He plucks her cigarette from where it dangles between her lips and places it between his own and passes her beer to Bill, who takes a long swig, tilting his head back. "What the  _fuck_  do you think you're doing drinking?"

Maggie blinks at him. Once, twice. She opens her mouth. 

"You're forty-one years old!" Eddie says, takes a long drag on her cigarette and blows it out the left corner of his mouth. "Even if you were twenty-five and this wasn't a risking pregnancy, you shouldn't be smoking and you definitely shouldn't be drinking. Mike," He says, turning towards him. "Add prenatal vitamins to the grocery list - ask the clerk for organic ones. They'll be fucking expensive but they're what she needs. Pick up kale, spinach - why aren't you writing? - broccoli, salmon, yogurt, sweet potatoes and lean chicken. Get it from your grandfather, so it's homegrown and organic. It's gonna be more pricey than our usual haul for the next--" Eddie looks at Maggie, who's leaning her hip against the counter, arms crossed, watching him with a fond expression on her face. "--what - five months?" 

She grins, mouth ticking up at the corner. Nod. 

Eddie looks at Mike and takes another sip of the cigarette, down to the filter already and stubs it out in the dish on the counter. "For the next five months. So if your grandfather wants to bitch we can start paying--"

"It'll be fine," Mike says, smiling. 

Eddie smiles. And his eyes are bright, huge and brown, and his cheeks are flushed and his smile is so wide it looks nearly painful. He surges forward, catches Maggie in a hug and pulls her towering form into him. He kisses her cheek, then her other cheek, then her forehead, excited little pecks. "You're gonna have a baby!" He pulls away and holds her shoulders. 

Her face morphs from fond to dumstruck, a little scared around the edges. "I'm - I'm gonna have a baby." She looks at Stan and Bill, who crowd into the kitchen, then at Richie, Ben and Bev. She smiles at Mike and says, "I'm having a baby."

And the room erupts. 

Stan gets to her first, yanks her into a hug, laughing into her neck, and Bill comes up behind, slings one of his arms around Maggie's waist and the other around Stan's. Bev presses up behind Maggie, puts her head on the nap of her neck and squeezes her waist and Bill's hands. They pull away, and Bill's smile is wider than she's ever seen it and he's crying, just a little. Mike catches her, tugs her into him and he's gentler than the others, smiling into her hair and whispering, "Congratulations" as he pulls away. Ben is next, and he tries to make the hug short, because he doesn't always think that he's one of her children, but she pulls him in and hangs on. And then Ben pulls away and she sees Richie, leaning against the counter, mouth open, staring at his mother with something she doesn't recognize. She expects a joke, honestly. But he wraps very gentle fingers around her wrist and pulls her close, wraps his arms around her shoulders and tucks his face into her neck. "You're so beautiful, ma," He says. 

She laughs, blinking away tears. "I got it from you," She says, soft soft. Only Eddie hears, and he fixes her with a look that she knows, suddenly, that she will be seeing for the rest of her life: a look of gratefulness  -  _thank you, for bringing him into the world_. And he gets one in return that he'll see until she dies -  _thank you for making him happy_. 

Richie lets her go and she stands there for a moment. 

She looks at each of them, at their smiles and the tears tracking their cheeks and wonders how she could have ever thought that they wouldn't support her. But the last time she'd had a child out of wedlock, her mother had disowned her with one final slap and a declaration that no daughter of hers could be such a whore. She'd been trapped in an abusive marriage for fifteen years. She'd nearly lost herself. 

There's a question that she's bracing herself for. She watches each of them and makes a little bet with herself - if it's Bev, she gets to have a three-hour-long bath tonight. If it's anyone else, she's treating them all to ice cream. 

"Okay, I'm sorry, but - who's the dad?"

Maggie grins. She needs a new bathbomb. 

And then she flushes, because if the question is being asked she has to answer. She looks over at Mike and rubs the back of her neck, cheeks flaming, gaze fixed on the floor. "Uh," She says. "It's possible that Mike--"

"What the  _fuck,_ " Stan says, both eyebrows raised. 

"No!" Maggie says, shaking her head, eyes wide. "No, no, no - I wasn't done. It - It--" She sighs. "It was Mike's uncle." 

Mike wrinkles his nose. "You've been banging my Uncle Martin?"

Maggie winces. "I mean... yeah. Seeing him."

"What?" Bev squeals. "You've been going out with someone and you didn't tell us? How long?"

"Uh, like seven months?"

Eddie gasps, his face painted in mocking surprise. "You mean you  _haven't_ been going to the spin class you never pack for? Or complain about. Or comment on unless we bring them up. Or know that I've been going to spin for  _a year_." 

Maggie raises her hand and flips him off, ignoring the laughter that bubbles from him. 

"Spin class more like sin class," Stan mutters. 

Richie's eyes widen. "Stan the man gets off a good one!" 

Eddie groans and slaps Richie's arm, saying something about getting off that Maggie doesn't want to hear. Bill winks and Bev collapses into giggles next to Ben, who's trying to serve scrambled eggs while also laughing at the others. 

Maggie looks around at each of them, at their profiles and the cut of their shoulders, at the curve of their hips, the weight of their grins. Her hand settles over her belly. 

And she smiles. 

 

_The Wild family's roots crack foundations_ , grandmother tell fussy grandchildren at bedtime.  _They grow through fresh water springs and crack the wells and they tangle other roots along the way. The roots of the Wild family are thicker than rivers. The trunk of the Wild family tree is rough, with steps carved into its bark, easy footholds and handholds to climb. Its leaves are dark and thick. Its fruit is dark blue, sometimes red. No one has climbed the Wild tree,_ grandmother says,  _but they say that there is a home up there - a house with old brick and a new porch, a house where the fire is always lit and the food is always good. A home for children, for mothers and fathers and lovers. For friends._ And then grandmother tucks the children into bed, kisses their foreheads and smiles when they ask if they can visit the Wild house.  _One day_ , grandmother says,  _if you're very lucky_. 

 

_Six months later_

Bill turns twenty on a coldish day in Maine. April seventeenth should be warmer, he thinks, but frost still clings to the trees early in the morning and only fades at noon. He doesn't have any plans. None of the others even know that it's his birthday, or that he's turning nineteen. They don't talk about things like that - it's always bigger or smaller. Existential or completely superficial, but funny. And if they do, it is to point out the six year difference between Eddie and Richie which doesn't align to their maturity. This conversation always ends in Richie trying to tickle whoever called them out and Eddie sticking his tongue out, as if they take pride in acknowledging all the ways their friends are right. 

Next to him, doused in cold winter sunlight and fast asleep, is Stan, curled onto his side, his face tucked into Bill's chest. Bill drags his index finger down his nose, brushes his fingertips over his eyelids. Stan twitches and buries himself deeper in Bill's shirt, nosing at the cotton. 

"Stan," Bill murmurs. "Baby, you gotta get up, you're working today."

"Fuck work," Stan says, cross. Bill laughs, tugs on one of his curls and watches it spring back. 

It's not often that Bill can get away with calling Stan any kind of endearment - it usually earns him an unimpressed raise of his eyebrows and nothing more - but when it's the morning and he's so so soft, he likes them, just a little. 

"You work at nine, and it's seven-thirty," Bill says. Stan groans, throwing one leg over Bill's hip and his arm over his waist and pulling Bill onto him, using him like a blanket. 

"Here's a thought: I don't fucking go."

Bill laughs. "Sure, and get fuh-fired from a position you worked your ass off to get."

Stan pinches his thigh. "Stop being so fucking logical, Bill. Let me have this."

He cherishes these moments with Stan, when he isn't obsessively arranging things and though he loves those parts of him, he can't touch him or talk to him the same way. When it's early and Stan's ritualistic mind hasn't kicked in, he talks a little more, a little softer, and smiles wider. It's the moments in between Stan being his working self, stern and steady, slow to laugh, but always kind - and his post-sex self, languid and gentle, all sharp bite marks and quiet hands. 

Bill puts a hand on Stan's jaw, pulling Stan out of his neck and licking across the seal of his mouth, licking over his teeth and sucking on his tongue. Stan makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat and Bill groans, catching his wrists in his hands and pinning them to the bed. Bill bites at his bottom lip, his ear, his collarbone. He sucks at Stan's collarbone, tender. 

Stan says, "I can't believe Maggie is having a baby." Bill smiles against his skin, drags his tongue up his neck. Stan shivers. 

"I can't believe there's guh-gonna be a baby in the house."

"Well, we've got Richie. But I'm thinking this one will be much cuter."

Bill laughs. "He's cuh-cute, he's just too loud fuh-for you."

Humming, Stan combs his fingers through Bill's hair, traces over the tops of his ears. His face is buried in his sternum, mouthing there with lazy movements. "Him and Eddie are good together. Better than I thought they'd be." 

Bill nods. "I didn't like-cuh that Richie was so much older at fuh-first." 

"Six years is big," Stan agrees, and then tugs at Bill's hair. "But you're two years older than me." 

"Don't remind me. At luh-least Eddie is legal. I'm just a cray-cray-cradle robber." 

Stan breaths out his noise, a huffing laugh and Bill knows that he's waking up. He's realizing that he's going to go to work today and that he won't see Bill until tonight. He likes Bill, which makes Bill grateful and terrified, because Stan is so very, very wonderful and someday he might decide that he's done with a stuttering boxer with a bad temper and a penchant for writing horror. He's accepted the likelihood that Stan will marry someone else. It makes the space behind his breastbone hurt. But he cherishes these moments with Stan. He breathes in, wraps his arms around Stan's waist and kisses his skin. 

"What's wrong?" Stan says, running his cool, dry hands over his neck and shoulders, down his arms. 

"Thuh-thuh-thinking about whether or not Muh-Maggie will muh-marry muh-Martin." 

Stan's hands pause. He says, "You've never lied to me before." And Bill hurts a little deeper than before.

"It's nuh-nothing, Stan."

"Hmm." Bill doesn't want him to push, but Stan sometimes it's like he was shaped to help Bill learn and grow, to challenge him and pull at the things he doesn't want pulled. "Well, we were talking about Maggie. Eddie and Richie. I know you think they're going to last--"

Bill sighs. 

"Oh," Stan says and his hands pause before continuing to run his hands over Bill's shoulders, digging into the nape of his neck. "Do you not want us to last?" There's no judgement in the question, as if Stan has no emotional attachment to the answer. Bees buzz in Bill's gut, just for a moment, a flood of anger for Stan, before bony knuckles dig into his shoulders and he forces himself to relax. 

"I want to marry you someday," Bill says, whisper-soft. He raises his head, digs his chin into Stan's sternum. "So, yes. Do you?"

Stan pinches his ear. "You think I go around dating all the twenty-year-olds with anger issues I meet? You think I take opening myself up to someone lightly, or that trust is something I have a natural inclination for?" There's something very vulnerable and very cold in the bottom of his voice. "I don't just fall in love with anyone, Bill," Stan says, very softly. 

Bill crawls up his body, and pulls Stan onto his side, facing him. He kisses him. "I love you." 

Stan just looks at him, quiet, and then he says, "I love you, too" and Bill melts. Stan kisses him, gets his hand in his hair and pulls until he's is on his back and Stan is straddling his thighs. He bites at his neck. "Happy birthday, baby," Stan says and laughs as Bill squeaks. 

 

When Eddie sits in his lap and says, "You know, you should ask me to marry you," Richie's brain promptly short-circuits. "Except," He continues, "If I've asked you to ask me to marry you, then really I'm asking you. Which makes sense because you haven't got any fucking balls."

Richie stares at him, and his hands settle on Eddie's thighs without really registering the movement until the soft cotton of Eddie's (Richie's) t-shirt and the nylon of his shorts slide under his fingers. 

Richie had been laying on his bed, reading  _Cujo,_ his knee bouncing. He'd spent his morning staring at the boxes all around the room. The packing tape, the brown cardboard, the packing peanuts. His bare walls. The apartment and housing listings for Seattle taped to his window in precise sets of four, with four centimetres margins. One of them is circled. It's a three story duplex, tall and thin with a brown front and a blue door and big windows. There are five bedrooms. Its kitchen is the size of a shoebox and there are only two bathrooms, one with a bath, one with a shower, one of them with no sink, but a bidet. He'd picked up  _Cujo_ because everyone had assumed that he and Eddie were sharing a room, but Eddie hasn't spoken to him for three days, until he came into his bedroom, put his book spine up on the floor, sat in his lap and well... proposed. 

"I've been thinking about it," Eddie says. He's not touching Richie at all, except for the splay of his thighs. 

"Right," Richie says and continues staring at Eddie. 

Eddie gets off his lap and he blinks. "Eds--"

"Why didn't you tell me that you'd applied to Columbia and Seattle?"

Richie frowns. "Because you didn't want to go to New York. I applied before you told me what schools you wanted."

"You got accepted into an  _Ivy League University."_ Eddie snaps. 

Richie says, "Well, yeah, but you didn't want to go to New York. And I like Seattle more. But mostly you didn't want to go to New York."

"But--" Eddie's frowning, even if his mouth is twisted into confusion. " _Why_  would you reject Ivy League to come to Seattle with me?"

See, the thing about the thing between Eddie and Richie is that Richie has never had anyone else like him. He watches the planes of his face, his sharp chin, the freckles dotting his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, his big, dark eyes, hidden behind round wire frames and the honey-coloured hair curling over his ears and forehead. He sees the play in his eyes, the laughter in the fullness of his mouth and sex in the way the tops of his cheekbones fllush. He loves him and he's only ever loved Eddie. He doesn't know what loving other people looks like, but he's twenty-four, nearing twenty-five, and he doesn't really mind. He could marry Eddie. He'd like to. He'd wear his converse. But Eddie is just nineteen, going into his first year of university, his first time away from home. 

Why would he want Richie through all that? 

"Eddie," Richie says.

" _Why_ Richie?" Eddie looks a little desperate, his arms hugging himself, even smaller than usual and Richie hates hates hates it. 

It's in that moment that he realizes he's never asked Eddie on a date. He's taken him out - wined and dined him, done some wooing, because he knows Eddie likes it, and had sex with him nearly every night because he's learned how from Eddie. But they've never made it official. Eddie shakes off his hand in public and doesn't kiss him. Their hands curl together on the couch, though and he catches Eddie's eyes across the room while they're talking to different people, a silent check-in. 

"Because I love you," He says, and he says it like a fact - like how the sun rises every morning and sets everynight and how much his mother loves him. It feels obvious to him. Of course he's loved Eddie. He's loved him since the first time Eddie laughed and the first time he called Maggie an asshole and the first time they fought and the first he sat on Richie's cock and smiled when he moaned. He loves him, even when he cowers into himself and looks small. 

Eddie's mouth falls open. "What?"

"I love you," Richie says. He frowns and his fingers start to slide together, anxious and mumbling. "You didn't know that?"

"That's not funny, Rich--" Eddie says, sharp sharp sharp. 

"Eddie, what do you think this is? I don't - I've never - Eddie, I'm going to Seattle with you. You've slept in my bed every night for nine months. Ma calls you her favourite son-in-law. What did you think that all meant?"

For a moment, Richie thinks he must have done this wrong. Maybe, Eddie doesn't love him? He thought that maybe he did, though he didn't have to.

Eddie cheeks are pink pink pink and Richie wants to bite them. 

"I - I thought you --" Eddie takes a deep breath and fixes his gaze on the floor. "--I thought we were just fucking." 

Richie stands up and brushes past Eddie, opens his window with a great  _thunk_ and pulls a cigarette from his pocket. He lights it. His fingers hurt from where they pressed against Eddie's thighs, pressed into his mouth and his ass. His hands hurt from running over Eddie's skin. His legs hurt from holding him, from touching him, and his hair tingles with where Eddie pulled it, ran his fingers through it. His cock hurts, his ass, his inner thighs and he can feel the hickeys there and on his hips and on his collarbones like brand, and they pulse with his heart's unsteady rhythm. His mouth screams. His lips, tongue, the roof of his mouth and his teeth. His gums. Everything - every part of his hurts, because every part of him has been touched by Eddie. Every part of him fell in love with him. 

Richie lets smoke spill from his mouth. He smokes down to the filter and presses the cigarette into the window frame, pulls out another. Smoking hurts. Eddie gave him this lighter and bought him that pack. He doesn't tell him to quit, because it says so on the box and if there's one thing Eddie doesn't do is underestimate Richie's smarts. He knows they're unhealthy. He doesn't need his boyfriend - his fuckbuddy, Richie muses - telling him about the damage to his lungs. 

"Maybe you were just fucking," Richie says. He laughs and it hurts to do that, too. "But there wasn't a time when I put my hands on you and I thought that you were just a good fuck. Never. It's all it was to you." Richie tilts his head back, exhales smoke. "We're done, then. You're done being my boyfriend and I'm done being your side chick."

Eddie doesn't say anything, but Richie can still feel him behind him. 

He leans his forehead against the windowframe. "Baby--" He clears his throat. "Eddie, how can you go from fucking sitting in my lap and proposing to me to telling me that you thought we were just fucking? How the fuck can you do that?" His voice is foreign, even to himself, very small and very quiet. He's not angry. 

"You love me." 

Richie looks at him, and it hurts to look. It hurts to see his smooth thighs and his tiny grey shorts and the white t-shirt that hands off his smooth shoulder. He's wearing Richie's shirt. He's so small. A smile ticks at the corner of his mouth. His Eds. Five foot six, a hundred and twenty pounds, fists of steel, determined to fight and to prove himself to whoever he needs to. "Yes," Richie says, and his smile turns sad, honey split through a cheesecloth, slow soaking drips. 

"You want to go to Seattle for me."

"The others are going to, but--" Richie wipes his eyes, laughs, bitter and sharp from the back of his throat. "I would've gone - I'd still go wherever you wanted me to. If you wanted me to go somewhere I'd be there. For you." 

Eddie makes a noise in the back of his throat and one of his arms is still crossed across his stomach and one of his hands is covering his mouth. He's crying. "'Chee," He says, and it's breathless in the ugly way that talking while crying is. "I love you, how could you think I didn't? I thought  _you_ thought we were just fucking! I thought you thought I was just--" He shudders and Richie stares at him, shocked, open-mouthed, caught in the throws of bouncing through the range of emotions. "I'm nineteen, I'm not even in my first year yet and you're getting your Master's and your teaching degree and-and how could you want  _this?_ I'm young enough to be one of your students. I thought it bothered you having me around." 

_I don't deserve you_ , Eddie thinks. 

"Eds," Richie says, and then he's stubbing out his cigarette against the window, and letting his long legs take him across the room and he's picking Eddie up under his thighs, tucking his face into his neck. "God, I love you but you're so  _dumb_ how could you think I didn't want you? What the fuck, Eds?" 

Eddie laughs into his hair, wrapping his arms around Richie's shoulders. "Marry me," He says, whisper soft. "'Chee, I'm serious!" He adds as Richie laughs. He walks forward a few steps and presses Eddie back into the wall, bites at his throat, sucks until he whines. 

"I'll marry you," He says into Eddie's throat and then again into his mouth, "I'll marry you when a wedding won't stress you out. When you're done university." 

"Richie," He breaths, and kisses him, hard. He whines when Richie sucks on his tongue. 

"Richie! Eddie!" Their door bangs against the bedroom door as it opens. Mike stands there, eyes bright, chest heaving. 

"Mikey-boy, if you wanted a threesome with us--"

"Shut up, Richie! Maggie's going into labour, we gotta go!" 

"Holy  _fuck!"_ Eddie says, pushing out of Richie's arms, running his fingers through his hair. "Let's  _go_ , Rich!" 

And as Eddie laces his fingers through Richie's and drags him out the door to his car and through the ER, searching for Maggie, Richie realizes that Eddie hasn't let go of him. 

_Maybe,_ he thinks as he watches him holding his little sister, Valerie Belle Hanlon-Wild,  _maybe he won't ever let go_. 

And he smiles. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> lemme know and come bother me on tumblr gay-for-roxane


End file.
